50 free Michelangelo's David trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Michelangelo's David trivia quiz is about the statue itself, not the sculptor's whole career (for that, try our Michelangelo trivia page). It follows the 'giant' from the block of Carrara marble that Agostino di Duccio abandoned in 1466, through the 26-year-old Michelangelo winning the commission in 1501, the tools he used, the committee of Leonardo and Botticelli that argued over where to put it, and the four-day journey on greased logs to the Piazza della Signoria in 1504. It then covers the statue's rough later life: stones thrown at it the year it debuted, the arm broken in the 1527 riot, the acid cleaning of 1843, the move to the Accademia in 1873, the 1991 hammer attack, the cracked ankles, the 2004 restoration fight, and the plaster cast with a detachable fig leaf that Queen Victoria passed on to the V&A. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia's article on the statue and each explanation adds one further detail. Suitable for art history students, Florence-bound travellers and anyone who has stood in the Accademia and wondered why the hands are so big.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How tall is Michelangelo's David?
5.17 metres
It was the first colossal marble statue carved since classical antiquity, and it weighs roughly 8.5 tons.
Q 02In which Italian city was the David carved and unveiled?
Florence
It was unveiled in front of the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of the city's republican government, on 8 September 1504.
Q 03Between which years did Michelangelo work on the David?
1501-1504
His contract of 16 August 1501 gave him two years; he began carving early on the morning of 13 September that year.
Q 04How old was Michelangelo when he won the commission for the David in 1501?
26
Leonardo da Vinci was among those consulted and Andrea Sansovino also wanted the job, but the young Michelangelo convinced the cathedral overseers.
Q 05For which building was the David originally commissioned?
Florence Cathedral
It was meant to be one of twelve prophets standing on the buttresses at the east end, high above the ground, which may explain its oversized head and hands.
Q 06Which sculptor first began roughing out the marble block in 1464, decades before Michelangelo touched it?
Agostino di Duccio
He got as far as the torso, legs and feet before stopping in 1466, the year his master Donatello died; the block then lay in the cathedral yard for years.
Q 07From which quarrying town did the marble for the David come?
Carrara
The block was bianco ordinario grade, not the finer statuario, from the old Roman Fantiscritti quarry; it travelled by ox cart to the sea and by barge up the Arno.
Q 08What nickname did the Florentine cathedral overseers give the neglected marble block?
Il gigante
A 1500 inventory described it as 'a certain figure of marble called David, badly blocked out and supine'.
Q 09How long did the cathedral overseers' contract give Michelangelo to finish the statue?
Two years
He was paid six fiorini a month and given a workspace behind the Duomo; the statue was in fact finished in early 1504.
Q 10Which sculptor was contracted in 1476 to resume work on the block, only for the deal to fall through?
Antonio Rossellino
After that failure the block lay exposed to the weather in the workshop yard for another 25 years.
Q 11Which two famous artists sat on the 1504 committee deciding where the David should stand?
Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli
Nine sites were discussed; Leonardo favoured the sheltered Loggia dei Lanzi, while Botticelli wanted the statue in front of the cathedral.
Q 12Whose bronze sculpture did the David replace at the entrance to the Palazzo della Signoria in 1504?
Donatello's Judith and Holofernes
Both works embodied a theme of heroic resistance, which suited the republic's defiance of the exiled Medici.
Q 13How was the finished statue moved the half mile from the cathedral workshop to the piazza in 1504?
Q 21What did Michelangelo carve behind David's right leg to help support the statue's weight?
A tree stump
Contemporary documents called it the broncone, the same word used for Lorenzo de' Medici's emblem of a dead laurel branch sprouting new growth.
Q 22Which Florentine satirist proposed women offenders be forced to gaze at Michelangelo's David 'with eyeglasses'?
Machiavelli
Eyeglasses were a notable Florentine product; the satire poked fun at the gilt garland that failed to hide the statue's erotic charge.
Q 23In 1991 a man named Piero Cannata attacked the David with what?
A hammer
He broke off the tip of the second toe of the left foot and said a 16th-century Venetian painter's model had told him to do it; three tourists were caught pocketing fragments.
Rolled on fourteen greased logs
It hung in a wooden frame and took more than 40 men four days; a guard was posted because rival artists were hostile.
Q 14What happened to the David during its four-day move to the piazza in 1504?
It was pelted with stones
The marks are still visible on its upper back; four youths from prominent families were arrested and three imprisoned.
Q 15Which part of the David was broken into three pieces during an anti-Medici riot in 1527?
Its left arm
Giorgio Vasari later claimed that he and a friend, still boys, braved the violence to rescue the fragments.
Q 16In which year was the David moved indoors to the Galleria dell'Accademia?
1873
It travelled across the city in a wheeled wooden crate from 30 July to 10 August; a replica took its old place in the piazza in 1910.
Q 17What is unusual about the David compared with earlier Davids by Donatello and Verrocchio?
Goliath is left out entirely
Scholars such as Howard Hibbard read the tense brow and bulging neck veins as David sizing up the giant before the fight rather than celebrating after it.
Q 18What is the classical stance, weight on one leg with hips and shoulders at opposing angles, that the David adopts?
Contrapposto
Renaissance artists saw the pose as a hallmark of antiquity, traced back to the Doryphoros of Polykleitos from around 440 BC.
Q 19Which parts of the David are unusually large for both Michelangelo's work and antique models?
Head and hands
The likely reason is that the figure was designed to be read from far below on the cathedral roofline.
Q 20What does David hold in his left hand, draped over his shoulder?
A sling
Its strap runs down to the right hand; soon after installation the strap and tree stump were gilded and a copper vine was hung around the groin.
Q 24What did analysis of the fragments from the 1991 attack reveal about the marble?
It consists entirely of calcite
The tests also confirmed the stone came from the Fantiscritti quarries in Miseglia, the central of Carrara's three valleys.
Q 25In 1843 the sculptor Aristodemo Costoli cleaned the David with what, causing lasting damage?
Hydrochloric acid
The 50 per cent acid solution stripped the protective wax and left the surface pitted and porous, worse than 400 years of weather had managed.
Q 26How was the David protected during the Second World War?
Packed in sand and entombed in brick
Michelangelo's other sculptures in the Accademia were sealed up in the same way.
Q 27The 2004 restoration was the David's first major cleaning since which year?
1843
It was timed for the 500th anniversary of the unveiling; the first restorer resigned in a row over wet poultices versus dry brushing.
Q 28Which restorer resigned from the 2004 project after refusing to use the wet 'poultice' cleaning method?
Agnese Parronchi
She wanted soft brushes and motorised erasers; the job passed to Cinzia Parnigoni under Accademia director Franca Falletti.
Q 29Which parts of the David have developed cracks that engineers monitor closely?
The ankles and the tree trunk
A forward tilt of one to three degrees, probably dating from the 1844 Arno flood, is blamed; a 1,500-piece plaster mould made in 1847 added to the strain.
Q 30To whom did Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany give a plaster cast of the David in 1857?
Queen Victoria
It was a diplomatic sweetener after he refused to lend a Ghirlandaio painting to London; the surprised queen passed it to the South Kensington Museum.